Thursday, May 28, 2015

Rain totals, more coming & hurricane outlook 2015

More rain in places that just don't need any more right now. Here are the totals through 7 a.m. Thursday:

Dodge City: 1.16"

Salina: 0.89"

Garden City: 0.76"

Hutch: 0.73"

Wichita: 0.51"

Jabara Airport: 0.40"

Great Bend: 0.33"

Winfield: 0.21"

Elkhart: 0.12"

Liberal: 0.05"

Medicine Lodge: 0.04"

Goodland: 0.03"

Russell: 0.03"

Newton: 0.02"

Hays: 0.01"

More rain is coming and there could be at least two more rounds of heavy rainfall between now and Saturday morning. One round is coming through Thursday night and early Friday. Then with a cold front coming through Friday afternoon and evening, we can expect more rain and storms to develop. The chance for severe weather should drop off considerably after today (Thursday)

The official 2015 hurricane forecast came out Wednesday. It's calling for another very quiet season across the Atlantic and it's mainly tied to the El Nino influence. How does El Nino keep the hurricanes at bay? First, let's recap what El Nino is. It's the unseasonably warm water off the equator in the Pacific Ocean, and this warm water does have some impact on the weather patterns across the Northern Hemisphere. This phenomenon has resulted in some very heavy rains across the central and southern Plains, and now moving into hurricane season, will hopefully work to keep the hurricanes away.

El Nino has a tendency to increase the wind shear over the Atlantic Ocean. Wind shear is the change in wind speed and direction as you move higher in the sky. Stronger winds higher up in the atmosphere proves to be detrimental to hurricane formation. Across the Atlantic Basin, forecasts are calling for more wind aloft, which should keep the number of tropical systems at a minimum. The last major hurricane (Category 3 or higher) to hit the US was Wilma back in October of 2005.